New Harassment Allegations Emerge From Weinstein’s Earliest Industry Days

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A new report into Harvey Weinstein’s past claims that the former studio exec has been a sexual predator since his earliest days in the entertainment industry. According to The Hollywood Reporter, in 1975, when Weinstein worked as a concert promoter in Buffalo, he propositioned a female manager at a local collections agency. The unnamed woman says that Weinstein, who was then 22 or 23, offered her concert tickets to get an extension on overdue payments, which she accepted. When the woman came to pick up the tickets at his home, she says she was told by his roommate that he was he in the bathtub. She claims that upon entering the bathroom to retrieve the tickets, Weinstein asked her to wash his back. The woman says she grabbed the tickets and left, but later went to Weinstein’s office to thank him, where he then “put his arm around her and tried to kiss her” and implied something more. “He wanted a blow job,” she says. It’s one of the earliest claims of Weinstein’s alleged misconduct, along with two other accusations of rape and sexual assault dating back to the late 1970s.

Also in the THR report, producer Alan Brewer, a longtime friend of Harvey’s, says that while he and the Weinstein brothers were working on the film Playing for Keeps in the early 1980s, he was approached by a female crew member with an allegation. He says the woman told him Harvey had invited her to his hotel room to talk about work, but instead attempted to kiss her and force oral sex on her. When Brewer offered to call the police, he says the woman told him to just keep Harvey away from her. On that same project, Brewer claims he was physically assaulted by Weinstein during a tense meeting in New York City around the film’s 1986 release. “He went from being seemingly happy to grabbing me by the sweater, hooking his fingers around the collar, and swinging at my head,” Brewer says. He claims the Weinstein brothers followed him into an elevator and that Harvey continued to attack him outside in the street. When Brewer recently heard the tape of Weinstein harassing model Ambra Battilana Gutierrez, he says he immediately “recognized his Jekyll-and-Hyde mode.”